


The Downside to Having Thumbs

by reyloandbehold



Category: The 100
Genre: Angst, Death, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:23:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reyloandbehold/pseuds/reyloandbehold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes even the best laid plans are stillborn.</p><p>Takes place instead of the finale. <br/>Reapers have captured everyone, and strung Bellamy to watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Downside to Having Thumbs

**Author's Note:**

> I would say I'm sorry, but anyone who knows me, knows how much of a lie that would be.

Wrists tied together tighter than the fear gripping his spine like the devil himself was behind him, making sure he paid rapt attention to everything happening, Bellamy was well and thoroughly trapped.

It was only made worse by the acidic air of whatever was in those yellow smoke bombs. Each breath was tiny bees swarming his throat, collecting moisture from the cells there, stealing it away for their honeycombs- what he wouldn't give for a taste of honey, if only to sate the burning onslaught of each winged insect's stingers burying into his larynx! But there was nothing but dying wings falling to his stomach, fluttering, panicking, trying to keep their bodies from drowning in the acidity of his roiling peril.

Screams echoed all around him, and they ripped his focus to and fro, the mortal cries demanding attention- demanding salvation. He couldn't help them, and that made it all the worse, because being helpless to save himself was one thing, but these people were  _counting_  on him to swoop in and be the heroic knight he had made them believe he was. How fucking stupid of him. No one was leaving this clearing alive. Like sheep, his people were herded and shoved to the spot where only hours ago, Bellamy had made them believe they were victorious. 

One of the Reapers brandished a bone handled knife, it's curved blade shining, white hot from having been buried in the dying fire. There was no ceremony, no signal- nothing to prepare Bellamy for Jasper suddenly on his knees, his face pale, blending into the whites of his eyes that refused to waiver from Bellamy's, with the main Reaper holding him up by his hair.

Before he could struggle against the ropes dangling him from the tree, the blade moved, and it was red, dripping with chunks of a lighter pink. Most of Jasper's body thudded to the floor, weaker than an earthquake, but rippling through the soil and up Bellamy's legs and up to his throat, crumbling whatever left of his cornerstone. A distorted roar burst through his mouth, smacking into the Reaper's face like the lightest of breezes, for he smiled, shutting his eyes in reverie. 

Monty, ever the calm in the storm, was a banshee, alternating between wailing and cursing the Reaper's, demanding they release him. And they did, all but flinging him downward, hurtling into the pile of brain matter spattered around Jasper's cranium like it was Spring and life was poking its blossoming head through the earth. His hands hovered above the violated body of his friend- his brother- and Bellamy watched Monty's palms swallowed his thumbs and the boy stood, twisting, sailing his arm through the air. 

The blade moved again, a silver bullet until it wasn't, now crimson, and Monty was screaming again, clutching the space his fist should have been. He staggered forward, and red fell around him, reminding Bellamy that there were fates worse than being floated and that he was stuck watching each and every one of them. 

Even as another man slipped from the cowering mass of delinquents, Bellamy couldn't help but to feel peace in his heart that Octavia had escaped with Lincoln and was breathing unrestricted air, and her heart was pumping only the purest adrenaline through her veins as the spanned the insides of her body, moving ever away from death and war and all the things earth was never supposed to be.

The new man chuckled, his face painted white and a crown of bones piled high on his head. He grabbed Monty's wounded arm and stuck his tongue out, catching the spray of maroon still spurting from it, hollering in primal delight. If Bellamy could puke, he would, but as it were he could hardly even breathe, the position of his arms above his head was obstructing his airway and compressed his lungs. 

Still, when the crowned man surrounded Monty's neck with his hands, and twisted hard- Monty's vertebrae didn't stand a chance, crumbling like what remained of the hundred- Bellamy gasped, his hyperventilating throat spasming around the sound like the air displaced by Monty's falling body was careening into his vocal cords. 

But there was no time to calm or catch his breath, because his people had been lined up for a reason.

One by one, the Reapers went down the line, killing as they went- unless something caught their eye, and they would scent the sweaty skin of whoever it was, deciding if it was the knife or teeth that would end the life- until there was nothing but a pile of bodies stacked high.

No one would be burying graves for these people, he realized, a numbness that started in his fingertips descending over him as everything he loved was suddenly bones and flesh ripe for the carrion birds to begin gorging on. Luckily, Bellamy would be dead soon and he wouldn't have to face endless days and nights reliving the screams and the scent of warm, dead meat slowly dissolving into worm food. 

Octavia was okay though, he tried to reason, tried to get back to how the Bellamy before earth had only cared about one thing, and it was her. There was no nausea and salty cheeks overlooking the dead like some sort of chained beast. 

He had almost succeeded in deluding himself, when they brought Clarke out.

Fight flooded his system, and Bellamy lunged forward, pulling on his restraints harder than he ever had before. Some time ago he had read that if you broke your thumbs you could slip your hands through, but how the fuck did you do that? The cord around his wrists was tight, practically embedded into his flesh like the blonde woman before him was in his heart. She had never looked so dismantled: wild, unbelieving eyes darted from each unmoving form, her lip curling more and more until her face fractured and she was nothing but silent screams and trembling shoulders. 

But no tears fell from her face and Bellamy didn't know if that made him the coward or her.

"No," he begged, his voice giving away the urgency his knees could not, for if it were possible, Bellamy would be on the ground, groveling in the puddles of entrails and blood, if only it meant Clarke could be where the sun gave light without illuminating the vile horrors around them.

The horses that had leapt over the fallen walls of the camp, had sounded like thunder, but mutated hooves paled against the thudding in Bellamy's chest, because his heart knew that it was about to lose the one thing that would keep it beating.

Clarke.

"Yes," the crowned man taunted, hissing the word like the serpent come from hell to deliver them to temptation and away from paradise.

Stormy irises were all Bellamy could see, because Clarke was looking at him, and she was telling him all the wrong things. A slow exhale stilled her shaking shoulders, and Bellamy cursed her for giving in and accepting this fate- he could do it, but not her. Never her.

Blood trickled down his forearms as he wrestled his immobility, watching helplessly as both Reaper's shoved her to her knees, mocking the image of the faithful in rapture of salvation.

Words that Bellamy had never thought to ever speak were suddenly bubbling from his lips, incoherently and frenzied. Time had been their but now it was dwindling with every second it took the men to raise their blades hight above Clarke's head. When he tasted the crisp bite of an apple, he thought of her. When his thoughts became too much, it was her presence that made his made a safe haven again- when he witnessed a rainbow, it only paled to the way her face erupted into a smile at the sight of it. It was always going to be her to him, and  _I need you, princess. I need you so fucking much._

And she was telling him that it was him and it would have been him and they could have done it- and  _you're not a monster Bellamy Blake-_  and in her eyes he saw the alternate reality where all this was true. But he was a monster because she was going to stop breathing before him and he was doing nothing  

If telling her he loved her had the capacity to save her, the world would know all the different ways he could say it. Yet, it was a lie because no human in days past had ever felt the way about someone that he felt about her. They were a bloody symphony no had heard, hidden in the heart of a stare no one had ever seen. 

The blades were dropping though, and Bellamy wished he had wings and could pluck Clarke from the earth and soar above the face of the earth, or that he were a lion, fierce and unstoppable. Oh, he would tear his teeth into them and curl around her as night birthed frigid air. 

But Bellamy Blake was only human, and his hands wouldn't fit through the restraints because he couldn't figure out how to break the things that had set them apart and ahead of all other animals.

See, the problem opposable thumbs that could hold things and stroke a woman's cheek as she sighed into his touch- because he wish he'd have given into that desire at least once- was that when you couldn't use them- when you were trapped watching life  _stop_  before you- it felt like a sick joke.

Air cut, whistling with the speed at which metal stopped existing around Clarke, and was lodged safely in her back, sheathed in her heart, taking the place where Bellamy should have been.


End file.
